Creative Tips 2: Space, Space, Space

First, a big "Thank You!" to the amazing number of people who were kind enough to respond and say how much they enjoyed the first newsletter. I'm really delighted to know that you find the information useful and usable (since that's why I wrote it in the first place!).

Let's Get Some Space

Space: it may well be the Final Frontier, because when it comes to documents it is clear that it was never taught in high school. I think we were only ever flunked on content, and so we fixated on the text and forgot the page it was sitting on.

When you write a letter or a resume or a promotion for your business, you put thought and time into crafting your message, so it says exactly what you want to say in a way that will knock the reader's socks off. And it will, IF someone actually reads it.

So what would make someone not want to read a page? What would put them off before they even start?

As you've guessed by now, it isn't the words; it's the s-p-a-c-e.

A Marginal Difference?

The first point where space enters into your document is the margins. Better than 90 percent of the Word documents I see have margins that are way too small.

Here's a designer's trick that will help to illustrate the point. Below are two "pages." Instead of text I've used only gray lines to indicate where the text would be. This prevents the "Can't see the page for the words" problem: it helps you to visualize how a page will look without being distracted by the words.

Which one, just instantly on a first impression, would you prefer to read? Which one looks more professional?

I hope it's pretty obvious that the one on the left looks heavy: much more likely to give one a headache than the other.

You formed that opinion more or less instantly. I bet it didn't take as much as half a second for you to make up your mind. Here's the thing: half a second is about all the time you have before someone throws away that piece of paper.

Lesson: If you want someone to read what you wrote, give your words some breathing space!

Tiny margins also say, in a subtle but definite way: "I'm poor, so I have to economize as much as possible by using every square inch of paper I can." I'll take a wild guess, here, that this is not the impression you're trying to create. Margins indicate respect for the reader, and a degree of success that doesn't impose stringent economies on the writer.

There's a lot more on this subject, but I don't want this to get too long so I'll save it for next week.

This Week's Bonus Tip(s)

When you want the next part of what you're writing to go on the next page, DON'T USE EMPTY LINES to fill up the space. If you later add anything to the text, your next page will have a weird-looking extra space at the top. To force the next paragraph to a new page, hold down the Control key and press Enter (that's Command-Return on a Mac).

When I receive the copy for a book or brochure that I will be designing, empty lines are the first things I have to get rid of. We'll be looking at some other no-no items in later editions of Creative Tips.

There were two quite well-known books back in the early 1990s, called "The Mac Is Not A Typerwriter" and "The PC Is Not A Typewriter," by Robin Williams and David Blatner. (That was in the days when people knew what a typewriter was. Some of us are old enough to remember, and not so old as to not remember. Ahem.) If you can get hold of a copy on eBay or Amazon, I highly recommend them.

See you next week!

Alan

The Creative Tips newsletter is published by G&G Creative, Tujunga, CA. More at www.gngcreative.com or on the blog.

G&G Creative is a design, photography and copy editing service located in Los Angeles County, California.

Copyright © 2009 Alan Gilbertson. All Rights Reserved.